Frustrating situation

[thormagni]

Well, I've had an unusual situation tonight and I just wanted to bounce it off you guys to get your opinion on what I should have done differently.

It was just about 10 p.m., we had just put out son to bed, and I was getting ready to follow, when there was a knock on the front door. A young woman wearing flip-flops, leading a little boy (maybe 3 or 4 years old) was at the front door. I had never seen either of them before. She and her son looked bedraggled, she said something about a broken down car, she was clearly at her wits end, and wanted to use the telephone.

After overhearing almost an hour of phone calls, shouting and crying, I gathered that she and her boyfriend have had an argument. He took her money and her cell phone and now she is stuck in Columbus. Apparently she lives in North Vernon.

While she was outside talking on my cell phone, Alex and I were left entertaining the little boy in the house. He is hungry and tired, he tells us. But he is also a Spider-Man fan and as most of you know, my home computer case is a Spider-Man case with a big glowing Web on the side. We talked about Spidey, I showed him my collection of Spidey pictures on the computer and gave him the Spider-Man action figure that sits above my monitor.

Time went by and eventually she was ready to start walking the streets of Columbus again, with nowhere to go, no way to get there and no one to call, apparently. I called the dispatch center, they sent a couple of very nice officers over but she had already headed off again. I pointed them in the general direction she left, and said she was heading for California Street.

Byt I just looked over in the corner and the little guy left the Spider-Man figure I gave him. I figured if anyone needed a Spider-Man to keep him company, this little guy did. Especially tonight.

And then, even as I was starting to write this, I heard another knock on the door. A few weeks ago, Bud Herron wrote several very moving columns about a panhandler here in Columbus. At the time those stories ran, I found out that she lives across the street from me. Just now, at 11:10 p.m., she knocked on the door of our house and wanted to use my phone. I told her "no" and sent her on her way.

I can't help but feel that in both of these cases there was something more I should have done. But I don't know what. Should I have driven the mom and boy to North Vernon? Even knowing that the panhandler has lied to me at least three times before trying to get money from me, should I have let her use my phone? Is there some bigger step I could have taken that would have helped both of them in a more meaningful way?

I just feel that my response was lacking and I wanted to see what everyone else thought.

 

[Grimhelm]

My first thought was to take the woman and boy to a shelter, but I don't know where or if such a place exists in Columbus. The second woman probably needs help of another variety and is probably beyond anything you can do for her.

These situations are especially frustrating and difficult because most of the time we want to do so much for these people, but due to circumstance can only accomplish very little. The appearance of the woman and her boy was just the tip of the iceberg, a symptom of much deeper problems that exist in her life that only she will ultimately be able to manage.

To get really sappy on everyone now, I really feel that if we can show love and kindness to everyone throughout our lives that the world must change and become better as a result. You showed kindness and generosity. Could you have done more? Probably, but to what end? My feeling says that this woman was at the end of a very long road of ill treatment and lack of love and kindness, so one charitable deed wasn't likely to help her out all that much. I think the thing to do is take this experience and realize that the love that you show to people around you right now will prevent these things from happening to them in their lives. It is not likely to cure those in the situations you described, but it is certainly adequate vaccination for the people we can affect.

I hope that makes some sense.

 

[thormagni]

I hope that makes some sense.

You made a lot of sense Mark. And that is a similar conclusion I have come to, we did what we could for the woman and her son, but ultimately her situation was way beyond our ability to help and, as you said, a culmination of the things going wrong in her life. Our ability to positively affect her situation was minimal at best.

The whole situation is rather surreal. We never did get her name. She never asked for ours. She just blew in like a storm and blew out again, as the turmoil in her life spilled over into ours. It was really only chance that brought her to our door, instead of a neighbors'.

And what a chance she took, even in her short interactions with us! She left her son with us for almost 45 minutes, while she talked on my cell phone outside. How many places could she have safely done that? How many people would have let her?

 

[InzeladunMaster]

I think you did what you could. She needed help, and you gave it to her and her child. As for the panhandler, that was the right thing also. It is one thing to be in a bad spot and need charity, and it is another to depend on charity to live.

In the first situation, you offered charity to one in need, and you refused it to one who routinely takes advantage. I think you did fine.

One thing I have learned is that many women in need refuse shelter and refuse to leave those who hurt them. I am not sure you could have done more.

 

[Grimhelm]

I agree, though I would amend it to say that men stay with women who hurt them just as much as women. It is one of the gravest and most telling of symptoms of the overall inability of humankind to show and receive true love from each other.

It breaks my heart to see people in such circumstances, as it did, I am sure, for John. If only we did have the power to truly change such things. The only thing we can do, though, I think, is to race home and kiss the ones we love a thousand times...